


A Room with a View

by pyes



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Future Fic, M/M, Reunion Sex, and a lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:43:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6531598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyes/pseuds/pyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe awaits Finn's arrival at a busy spaceport after a long, lonely year spent on opposite ends of the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Room with a View

Poe’s hands were jammed deep in his pockets as he watched passengers exit the transport ship and disperse into the busy docking area. He couldn’t help but double-check the name stenciled across the side. The _Felucian Waltz_ , it read. Still read. Same as it had been a minute ago, same as it was on the screen outside.

That was much too pretentious a name for a tired old people-mover like this one. He understood why the Resistance had booked Finn’s passage on something so nondescript: to help Finn make it back to this side of the galaxy, safe and undetected. Poe of all people understood that. But _he_ couldn't detect Finn, either, and it was driving him up a wall.

Hours of widespread delays had left the crowds of Kukiri Station chaotic and churning, eager to make up for lost time. They had only half unloaded the _Waltz_ but the next crew was already pushing in crates, forking the flow of traffic in unpredictable ways. It tickled at Poe’s pilot brain—analysis and intuition, obstructions and friendlies, that humming way a target pulled at him even when he couldn’t see it yet.

Poe came up empty scanning another group of passengers. He reminded himself for the twentieth time that he couldn’t exactly get stood up, here, that Finn’s arrival wasn’t in question. This wasn’t just a reunion. It was the last leg of a formal extraction op. Finn wasn’t just bringing his handsome self, he was bringing aggregate field intelligence and the training reports from the new, top-secret Academy that Ackbar had asked for his help setting up. There were bigger things at stake than Poe hearing Finn’s voice, and seeing Finn’s face, and getting that gut-wrenching sense one way or another if Finn still felt the same way about him after a year apart.

It had been a year interspersed with cobbled-together text transmissions that hit Poe’s hands three weeks late. A year of staring at a little blue holoportrait, heartsick and regretful they hadn’t done vids with voices. A year of—okay, technically it was just under a year, but given the distance and state of the galaxy, Poe counted the whole thing and no one had ever corrected him.

Poe wasn’t an anxious person by nature. Frankly he’d never had much practice. But as he scanned the crowds with narrowed eyes and one hand clenched around their room key, some ridiculous part of him fretted: What if he’s over me? What if I don’t recognize him? What if he’s not even here?

Of course he’d be here. If Finn hadn’t made the transport, he would have sent word, he’d have to send word. But he _must_ have made the transport, he had to be here, and—

There he was. That was him.

That was Finn with the furrowed brow and the duffel bag, stretching up almost onto his tiptoes to get a better look across the room. He was looking for Poe somewhere out there, and Poe… just barely managed keep himself from calling Finn’s name across the crowd. Caught himself at the very last second, the reality of their covert mission catching him with Finn’s name already in his mouth.

It was still loud enough in here that Poe had to yell something or else Finn might wander off before Poe could catch him. So he cupped the side of his mouth and yelled, “Hey, pal!” and it was half a joke and half not a joke. He heard that edge in his own voice, that desperate loopiness. It usually meant blood loss, but he guessed being in love could do it, too.

Finn’s gaze snapped up, his shoulders dropped, and he started searching for Poe’s voice. When their eyes found each other, Finn’s whole face lit up in this way that got Poe right in the chest.

With the relentless flow of bodies pushing their way out of the landing area, he probably should have waited for Finn to come to him, but it had been so long that waiting wasn’t an option. A path opened in the crowds between them and Poe took it.

He had planned to approach their reunion with care. A lot could happen in a year and Poe was sensible, he knew that. They were _together-together_ at the end for far less time than the year they’d been apart. Poe had thought about that a lot, the arithmetic of a still-young romance interrupted. He’d thought the right thing to do was take some time and check and double-check Finn’s feelings, to be cautious, not to make assumptions.

Planning was great but Poe wasn’t a planner, not really. Half of life was the adaptation, after all. Maybe more than half. Poe saw the bright, warm look in Finn’s eyes and he adapted. He shed the caution and went with his gut.

He didn’t slow down as he got closer to Finn. Finn’s smile grew into a radiant grin. Finn dropped his bag to the floor, Poe stepped right into his arms and the kiss when they came together was swift and soft and kinetic. Poe _loved_ that kiss, he loved it. He loved soft, gorgeous lips and strong, needy hands and Finn stepped in with so much of both. He was perfect, still perfect. He was… _prickly,_ actually. Poe hadn’t had time to register the beard until it was brushing his chin.

Poe pulled back only far enough to break the kiss—he had some flirty compliment all ready to go—but Finn preempted him with a hug so tight and unexpected that he forgot it. He forgot all the jokes and all his doubts. He just chuckled a quiet breath into Finn’s shoulder, and the inhale smelled like Finn. Some fragile, protected space in Poe’s chest just crumbled to let it in. He realized that he’d been on tiptoe. He let the weight of his body settle into Finn’s encircling arms. He breathed Finn’s scent in again and this time, without reservation.

For all the drama whirling around them, Poe felt peace in this moment. All the chaos in the room seemed to ease off to the corners.

So when Finn jolted away from him a second later, yelped, “Hey!” and thrashed in the air like somebody was pulling him off-balance, Poe had _no_ freaking idea why it was happening or how to stop it.

It took him a second to step back and see the strap caught around Finn’s ankle. The strap was attached to his bag, which was attached to the pincer of one royally pissed-off janitorial droid.

Finn snatched it up from the ground and the droid whistled and swore and snapped at him. It almost knocked a few people over as it zipped away. The spike of adrenaline faded and seeing the stunned look on Finn’s face filled Poe with a heady flutter of affection.

“Dumb droid,” Finn muttered, scratching his chin as he settled the bag back onto his arm.

Whatever Poe meant to say first, what he actually said was: “You have a beard.”

“What? Oh!” Finn said with a grin. He scritched it lightly with his nails for effect. “That just kinda happened. I can shave it—”

“Don’t you dare,” Poe teased. He leaned in for another kiss but a boarding announcement blared over the speakers, startling them both and killing the moment dead. They just stood there for a second with this deep shared sense of having _made it_ , never mind that their final destination was technically still the rebel base. They had made it to each other, at least. Poe held Finn’s arm and decided for sure that meeting him out here was the right decision. Out here it was just the two of them.

Well. Them, and everyone else.

Finn sighed and gave the _Waltz_ a final once-over. “I thought we were never gonna get a berth.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Poe muttered. “It was torture seeing you out the window these last few hours. Your ship, I mean.”

The correction was so unnecessary that it earned him a big smile from Finn. A handsome smile, no question, but a ‘gotcha’ one too; Poe was tongue-twistingly nervous and Finn had caught him.

Finn looked like he found Poe’s flustered self hilarious, though he didn’t tease him or push the issue. He just gently bumped his shoulder on Poe’s and told him, “Let’s get out of their hair. Or—” he shot a dirty look backward, “—their _pinchy little droid arms_.” The janitor droid was already harassing someone else.

“The rest of the spaceport level isn’t much better,” Poe warned. “I’ve got us a room on another deck, if you want somewhere quiet. Or are you… hungry? We could eat…”

“Somewhere quiet sounds great,” Finn said.

“Good,” Poe said, relaxing slightly, and nodding toward one of the corridors. “This way.”

He wasn’t kidding about the noise level; it wasn’t just the churning of crowds in the halls, but noise wafting in from the lounges, bars, and dusky canteens. He was relieved that Finn wasn’t hungry. The restaurants down here were both dingy and packed—he didn’t usually mind, but he wanted a little quiet with Finn, a little space.

The world around them was filled with cranky tension, but at least it wasn’t the snarling, lawless kind. This wasn’t that kind of Station. Poe had been cranky, too, until recently.

Finn reached over and took his hand before Poe had a chance to dwell on how much he’d missed him. “Wouldn’t want to lose track of you,” Finn said. His voice was serious, but he was smiling; both of those things made Poe’s heart beat a little faster.

Poe gave his hand an answering squeeze and noticed when he did that there was a thin scar ghosting the back of it. He had no idea how Finn had gotten such a scar. It hadn’t come up in the notes they’d sent.

He knew there would be a lot of things like that. He added it to the list of a dozen, a hundred questions he’d been saving. They bubbled up again with the slightest disturbance. What job had he ended up with? Was it teaching, did he like it? How had the recruits treated him? The civilian ones might have behaved, but what about the re-joins from the old Republic ranks?

That’s not how Poe wanted to start things off again. It sounded less like a reunion and more like a formal debriefing. Maybe it made sense to start with the easy questions. The recent, less classified ones.

Of course the noise level kicked up just as Poe opened his mouth to speak.

He started with, “How—” but had to wait for a moment until they passed a particularly loud bar. The exclamations were in a language he didn’t know well enough to tell joy from altercation, but there wasn’t any crashing or violence so he supposed it didn’t matter.

When they were clear, Poe repeated, “How was your trip?”

Finn puffed some air from his cheeks, squinting into the distance as he thought. “It was pretty smooth up ‘til that last leg. No trouble, no… anything, really.”

“Good!” Poe said.

“There was a baby on one,” Finn added after a pause.

Poe winced. “Crying?”

“Nah,” Finn smiled, “he was cool.”

Poe grinned at the vivid baby-befriending images that put into his head. He bet it was a cute baby, too. A Nautolan or something, big eyes and expressive tentacles. Finn was probably one of those guys who talked with babies like they were grown-ups, got a bit of banter going, played a couple rounds of peekaboo with a deadly serious look on his face. Poe could picture it perfectly. He’d spent a lonely year thinking up hypothetical Finns, and it was so strange to have the real one, too.

He gave Finn a surreptitious look over now that they had a little more space. Finn was wearing a slate-colored jacket and trousers over a trim black shirt. He had a beard. He also looked like he’d bulked up a little—he’d _definitely_ bulked up a little. Poe wondered if it was discipline or boredom. In his experience those two went hand-in-hand on remote postings.

Poe said, “I—” at the same time Finn asked, “How—?”

They both fell quiet, hesitated, laughed. He gave Finn’s had a commiserating squeeze.

“Sorry,” Finn said.

“You go.”

Finn bumped his shoulder and said, “No, you.”

Poe scrunched his nose but supposed he could give him that one. The words had felt natural a moment before but now they felt fluttery and vulnerable. True, though. “You look good. I like that color on you.”

Finn looked a little bashful. “Thanks. You look good too.”

“I look _alright_ ,” Poe allowed with a smile. His vanity was a well-trod punchline for sure, but it did the job—Finn laughed and jostled his shoulder gently.

“You’d started to say something,” Poe reminded him.

Finn had to think about that a minute. “Oh, is BB-8 here?”

“Nah, I shuttled in. Plus, a place like this… who knows what kinda trouble he’d get up to. And the way the droids around here talk, I’d have to give him a dozen language overrides.”

“Language—what, like he learns bad words?”

“...like it’s his job,” Poe confirmed without skipping a beat. “It’s _remarkable_. I’ve scrubbed words from those ‘banks that would make a Wookie blush.”

“You know, that’s actually.... not surprising.”

“No,” Poe smirked with a shake of his head. “No, it should not be. And I always feel so—”

“OUT OF THE WAY!” bellowed a voice down to their right. Poe’s first instinct was to throw up a hand and keep Finn from walking forward into danger. He had thought it might be a vehicle approaching; turned it was just a massive creature.

Every step the Dowutin took made the floor grates tremble slightly. His size and his voice were intimidating, but—he was wearing a little hat with some scientific apparatus and ornately carved chin-horns. Poe had never thought to wonder what a wealthy Dowutin would look like. It raised more questions than it answered. For this one's erudition, he looked equally likely to crush somebody.

He passed without incident and the chatting and cawing of the crowd started up again.

Finn stared in that direction, nonplussed. “I... am not used to crowds like this,” he reflected quietly.

“A little less rank-and-file than the last place you stayed?”

“You could say that,” Finn replied. He let Poe lead the way forward, staying maybe half a step behind this time.

If any of Kukiri Station’s broad corridors actually ended, Poe hadn’t seen them. They all just seemed to go on forever. That meant he had to be vigilant about finding the turnoff to catch the sector tram. It had fooled him before on his way down; there were two storefronts that looked identical and he had to make sure to pick the right one.

“You know where we’re going, right?” Finn asked.

“Up,” Poe joked, a reference to Kukiri’s architecture. Kukiri was basically crown-shaped—a vast ring capped with spires of different lengths—many complex and populous enough to be their own city. Some were industrial storage but others had whole microsystems.

When Finn raised his eyebrows, Poe wondered if the reference was lost. He tilted his head and explained the joke: “The layout of the Station…” he whirled his finger in a circle, “it’s all in the spires…”

Finn smiled. “Yeah, I was parked out there for three hours, remember?”

“Right,” Poe said, deflated, and a moment later: “Hey, look, the tram’s here!”

He tugged them towards a small (and surprisingly uncrowded) platform that had appeared at exactly Poe’s moment of need. The tram carriages were shiny metal tubes that reminded him of Republic water ration cans.

The door slid open and a jostling mass of people emerged, disappearing into the level-wide throng of activity. Their shared annoyance was as much a cross-section of galactic unity as you were going to get in the outer rim.

Poe squeezed Finn’s hand and led Finn inside the tram was soon as space had cleared. Finn might not have needed the guidance, but Poe liked guiding, so there they were. Because everyone was heading down to the spaceport and so few ships were arriving on time, the tram was as sparsely populated as the spaceport level had been full. There were maybe six other passengers in a car that was built for twenty, but from which thirty people had just exited.

The tram took off with an unexpected lurch—maybe a little more expected for Poe, who remembered to grab a pole, than it was for Finn, who jostled into him. Poe gave him a steadying hand on the chest. A generous galaxy kept giving him reasons to touch Finn’s abs. Poe wasn’t in a hurry to lift his hand again; when he did, straightened Finn’s jacket a little on the way, then paused and kept straightening.

“A very good color,” he summed up—like they were still talking about that—and Finn smiled and blushed and glanced out the window.

Poe looked in that direction too, let his gaze settle in the whirring of neon-glowing storefronts as their shiny tin can tram speeded by. He settled comfortably against Finn’s side and tried not to let it show in his expression.

But the curiosity weighed on him. “How’s the… ah,” he cleared his throat a little, “Mining colony.”

He watched Finn’s eyes light up a little. There was pride in that expression, a sense of purpose, and seeing it in Finn made Poe’s chest ache. “Good! Good, lots of new…” he dropped his voice, “...employees.”

“Good,” Poe said.

He flashed Poe a small, thrilled, private grin: “They all think I’m some kind of hardass.”

“For real?”

“Oh yeah," Finn blustered. "Renegade, troubled past, number for a name—”

“Tough but fair, I’m sure,” Poe summed up with a smile. He could picture this, too, and the ingenuousness of it gave him a thrum of gratification. A mixed group like that was bound to have some cliquishness and Finn represented a reminder of how that wouldn’t cut it. It was a smart play, the right play. A bit of bad cop to buffer Ackbar’s eccentric authority.

“How is the old man?” Poe asked, suspecting he knew the answer.

“He’s in his element for sure. It’s been… I didn’t know him that well, you know? And I feel like I know him now.”

“Must be wild, man. I mean, probably the greatest tactical genius of our—well, not _our_ generation, but…” Poe trailed off. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, you’ve been living with him for a year. He'd been unhappy with our training protocols for... decades, probably. You know, he was Emeritus when I was in Officer’s College, I was in a couple of his courses.”

“Really?” Finn asked, but Poe sensed he was just pretending to be surprised. Finn too-casually avoided eye contact, and when he looked back, Poe caught him.

“He told you stories, didn’t he.”

Finn admitted, “I think he could tell I missed you.”

Poe rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh. Yeah, I’m sure I came out smelling like roses.”

Finn didn’t even try to deny it. “Joyrides through the Esplanade…”

“One joyride!” He exclaimed. “I was young!”

Finn’s grin seemed to say, _I’m young, and somehow not full of nonsense_.

He was right, too. Finn never had the luxury of a wild youth. Sometimes it was hard to believe he’d ended up so—normal wasn’t the right word, because Finn wasn’t normal, he was extraordinary. But Finn was laid-back and lovely in so many ways, it was easy to forget that his childhood had been stolen from him.

Poe thought back on those last couple months and wished he could have known somehow that Finn was thinking of him, was learning things about him even if he wasn’t around. The Esplanade story was a good one. A kind of Academy legend—or it would have been, if the Academy were still there. The Esplanade was gone, the old Academy was gone—Finn would never see it. They’d never go to that little cafe with the fountain and the vapor-crepes.

He wondered if Finn had ever had a crepe. Maybe there was a place on the Station that served them. He swore he’d been thinking of that before—

Recognition struck him all at once, and he prodded Finn’s shoulder so suddenly that Finn jolted with it. “You’re 25 now,” Poe said. “You turned 25.”

Finn visibly couldn’t tell if he was being congratulated or accused.

“I meant to mention it,” Poe explained with a frown, “but with the delayed deliveries, and I did the math wrong… did you do anything for it? Did you have a good birthday… sad birthday...?”

“Birthdays aren’t really a big thing for me,” Finn explained.

“Sad birthday,” Poe clarified.

“Not sad!” Finn exclaimed, and Poe knew the emphasis was all for his benefit. “I was trying to play down the age thing,” he explained. “I was younger than a lot of them, didn’t want to make them uncomfortable.”

Poe nodded in agreement, but independently decided: “We’ve gotta do a birthday thing.”

“Uh, no, we do not. And you also had a birthday.”

Poe hissed, because that wasn’t the same. “Yeah, but I’m old. I got knees.”

“I’m sure your knees are fine, Poe.”

“That... is completely beside the point," Poe responded. He couldn't help that the smile went sad. His brain started whirring with plans and schemes, but even at the surface level he knew they’d never come to fruition. Too much time had passed and too little remained. They had another transport out tomorrow, made a connection on some backwater moon and then they’d be back on base together. Duty trumped indulgence every time.

“Hey,” Finn said. He lifted a hand to cup Poe’s cheek. It was a sweet little gesture, but it felt emblematic of all the sweet little gestures he’d been missing out on for a year. It took all Poe’s energy not to press into it, melt against it like they were the only ones in this tram. Instead he glanced down at the inside of Finn’s palm and noticed a small, pale scar.

The same one ghosting the outside of his hand.

It took only a moment’s suspicious calculation to realize that… something had gone _through_ Finn’s hand. Like there was a hole in it.

“Whoa whoa whoa. Wait, was this a _through-and-through_?” He felt deeply scandalized and held it by the wrist for emphasis. “Who shot your hand?”

“Nobody—” Finn started, loudly, then dropped his voice, “—nobody shot my hand.”

“Stabbed your hand? Who stabbed you in the hand?”

“My hand... became stabbed,” Finn allowed.

Poe raised his eyebrows.

“By a person,” Finn continued. “And we didn’t have the medicenter set up yet. And it’s fine, see?” Finn wiggled his fingers every which way to indicate full dexterity. Poe was not impressed, and Finn just kept on wiggling, clearly trying to forestall explanation.

Poe wouldn't be fooled by misdirection. “If this is you thinking you don’t have to tell me the story, you are sadly mistaken, my friend.”

“I was going to tell you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was gonna put it in one of my notes, but I couldn’t shorten it. I couldn’t do one…” he trailed off, “...one that made sense.”

“Huh,” Poe said, crossing his arms. “Why don’t you just gimme the highlights.”

Finn sighed, looking thoughtful. “So you know that we set up in that old facility, right? From back in the—” he lowered his voice considerably, “—Clone Wars? Well, they left in kind of a hurry, and nobody knew where it was, so it just… sat there. First thing when we got there was going through and cataloging all the supplies they’d left. And somehow we ended up with these really old rations— _I know_ —mixed in with the food supply.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It’s worse. ‘Cause this wasn’t even normal food. It was some kind of sabotage, or an experiment maybe, we couldn’t tell. But this stuff messes with your head. With your impulse control.”

“Impulse control—”

“Yeah, the… I’m getting to that. So I was talking to my buddy Oain in the mess and he’s eating this nasty-looking mash and telling me about his homeworld. Says it’s covered in sand. So I say something about not liking desert planets, ‘cause, y'know I don’t. And he nods…” Finn had started to trail off for dramatic effect, “and he takes his knife… and he just reaches over…”

“Oh. Oh no—”

“Straight through my hand! And he says,”

“What did he say?”

Finn’s face went cartoonishly stony, and he flattened his voice for dramatic effect: “They don’t like you, either.”

Poe smacked Finn’s chest: “No!”

“Yes,” Finn insisted, pretending at seriousness and not keeping the facade up for long. “I mean, I was _screaming_ , but even then I was thinking: are you really that cool, Oain? Are you? But no. And now he feels really bad about it. Buys me lots of drinks.”

Poe was so shocked he untangled their hands and gave Finn a light smack on the lapel. “You drink now? What’s your favorite drink?”

“Uh, there’s only really two we had, the brown grog and the gold grog.”

“That’s what I mean. Which one’d you like better?”

“Brown I guess? Gold is too sweet.”

“See, I like gold. That’s just me.” He tried to fight a wave of regret—of nostalgia for a place where he hadn’t been. He shook it off. “I’m surprised the Admiral didn’t break into his private supply. I know he packed it.”

“He did, once. Gave me some. I came to in a hangar, behind some crates.”

Poe laughed, but as the smile lingered on his face, something else came through him. A guilty warmth which crept through his chest and into his cheeks, finally giving shape to a fear he hadn't let himself say for almost a year: “I should’ve come with you.”

Finn sighed knowingly, touching his cheek again. “You wouldn’t have liked it. I barely liked it, and it’s something I cared about. And I’m used to staying in one place.”

It made a certain kind of sense but didn’t dislodge Poe’s frown.

Finn nudged him and went on, “That’s honestly the two most exciting stories. The rest was boring. And I bet you have stories, too.”

“One or two,” he acknowledged, unconvinced. He laced their fingers together again to show this was water under the bridge. Now it was Finn’s turn to not quite believe it. Poe wasn’t sure exactly how he felt, but it certainly wasn’t anger.

Whatever it was, it at least wasn’t too distracting. Poe recognized their stop coming up and said, “This is us,” as they pulled to a stop. Finn nodded and exited the tram in a prompt and attentive fashion. He was still overcompensating for the hand thing, and they both knew that Poe knew.

Poe saw Finn moving toward the more crowded lifts and eased a correcting hand around his waist, steering him in the direction of a second lobby with large glass doors. It was card-access only, so he got the key card from his pocket and tapped it. The doors slid open.

Any lingering murkiness cleared right up as he watched Finn’s face to see if he noticed the subtle change between the room outside the doors and the room beyond. The difference was hard to describe, but it was real. The materials were newer but only by a year or two. It was cleaned more frequently and soiled less often. Finn’s expression was a little thoughtful, but nothing give away a hunch. Good. It would stay a surprise.

The volume level dropped substantially as the doors slid shut behind them. The lobby was even quieter than the tram had been. There were only a handful of people around, well-dressed, and they moved with a confidence Poe didn’t share.

Poe started checking the elevator labels to double-check they were taking the right one. He felt Finn’s inquisitive gaze on the side of his face. Maybe he had judged wrong; maybe Finn was starting to suspect something. Poe knew he ought to try to pick a subject and just start chatting—to distract him—but nothing came to mind.

He took Finn’s hand and pulled him in as soon as the door opened; that was a subject, right?

He saw Finn’s face scrunch in confusion at the lack of any buttons. Poe tapped his key card on the wall, the lights grew slightly brighter and the lift shot off the ground both smoothly and quickly. Another subtle mark of wealth.

While they were stationary, the curved glass of the elevator had skimmed a close-fitting metal wall. Now the chamber was bathed with light as the metal ran out and the glass revealed a massive multi-story structure. Soon the unscrubbed walls and gray-green tinged lights of the lower levels were barely a memory. Everything up here was white or pale green or soft brushed copper with the occasional neon sign. Standing in the curve of the window and looking up, the circular walls of the spire went upward for what seemed like forever.

He just turned to watch the spaceport level grow smaller and distant beneath them. His nerves lit up when Finn squeezed his hand. Poe thought it was a nice, sweet gesture, maybe a lingering apology. Then he caught the gleam in Finn’s eye and knew this was something else entirely.

Poe heard Finn's duffel bag hit the floor with a now-familiar thump. It got Poe's heart thumping, too, because he knew what was about to happen. Finn spun him around, gently, and pushed him back against the glass; Poe had forgotten how pink Finn’s lower lip was right in the middle. Now he thought it was gonna kill him.

Poe pressed up and into the still-incoming kiss as Finn stepped them back against the elevator wall. He held Poe’s face with one hand—the hurt one, the healed one. Finn’s other arm skimmed Poe’s waist, pinning him. Finn’s body was warm and gut-ticklingly solid against him, his mouth all eager and persuasive. Poe didn’t need convincing, but he’d certainly accept it. A curved glass wall was hardly private, but it was enough a proper welcome back and a real _fuck-you_ to the year they’d spent apart.

Poe tucked his arms in under Finn’s jacket, feeling the smooth fabric of his shirt across the muscles of his lower back. It caught against his fingers and he couldn’t help but dig in a little. The thought of that weight moving over him—kissing Poe like he kissed him now—was enough to get Poe’s pulse racing faster.

Poe started getting all these wild thoughts he’d almost forgotten he was capable of. A million of them, some louder than others. What would Finn do if Poe pushed him back and dropped right to his knees? Would he be into that? Probably, right?

If Poe was honest with himself—and why not, if his mind was already there—the thing that kept him from testing the waters wasn’t propriety, or shame, or the glass wall behind them. It was knowing that the elevator would come to a stop any minute now and there really wasn’t time. And anyway, for all the ravenous kisses now, Finn was a bit… traditional. Maybe too private, too buttoned-up for Poe’s less prudent impulses. In another era that would have felt like a challenge; now it filled Poe with the strangest kind of nostalgia, almost skirting regret, that Finn would never really know that person he used to be. There had been downsides, but he’d given _impeccable_ upsides and in far less appealing elevators.

Finn’s expression as he pulled slightly back was doting, curious. He probably wondered what Poe was thinking about. Given what Poe was thinking about, the disparity made him feel like some kind of lecherous old man, at least for a second until Finn’s expression changed and one of his eyebrows perked up.

For a split second Poe wondered if he’d misjudged—if Finn was some kind of dirty mind-reader—but what Finn did was pull him in, almost off-balance, and started peppering his cheek with obnoxious, teasing kisses. Poe couldn't help but laugh, because he hadn't seen it coming: the ridiculousness of them, the bossiness. Then Finn’s kisses strayed to his ear. Then they dipped down to the vulnerable skin of his neck, and those little peppering presses of his lips grew deeper, warmer, and a little wetter. Not so innocent after all.

Poe hoped it sounded like he was still laughing, but it was just a series of breathy and unbidden exhales as Finn kept working on his neck. Poe couldn't help melting into it, surrendering his dignity and his power to stand on his own two legs. One of his legs had wrapped around Finn's, but the window was taking most of his body weight. They were putting a lot of faith in the strength of the cool and whirring glass behind them.

It went like that for a while, gradually escalating, until Finn pulled back; he looked almost concerned. “We haven’t missed our floor, right? How far up are we going?”

“Pretty far," Poe said. He know his attempts to sound casual were undercut by the sly grin.

"Huh," Finn drawled, all suavely interrogatory, "‘Cause while we were waiting to dock, I heard a woman on the transport saying Kukiri was nicer the higher up you went.”

“It’s nice. I mean, pretty nice.”

“I knew it.” Finn poked him in the chest. “You got us a nice room.”

“I got a nice room,” Poe confirmed, almost too excited now to be that cool about it. “I got—well, I didn’t know which way it would be, you know? I figured either I was gonna be crying into a box of bonbons, or… reunion. And either way I wasn’t gonna bunk with the riff-raff.”

“I hate to break it to you, Poe, but _we’re_ riff-raff.”

Poe grinned. “Not tonight we’re not.”

The elevator doors slid open as if on cue, and since Poe already knew the hallways beyond, he was able to focus instead of Finn’s face as he took it all in. The standard Station floor up here been inlaid with smooth, polished stone. There were sconces. And who knew how they’d managed to hack a high ceiling into the standard Station architecture?

“Are you for real?” Finn asked.

“I am _totally_ for real, pal,” Poe said, giving him a couple claps on the back. Finn gave a sound of protest but he was clearly pretty pleased. He leaned back against the gentle pressure of Poe’s hand.

Poe tried to savor the knowledge that he’d put that look on Finn’s face. Then he heard the cloying voice from the end of the hallway and all his contentment crackled away.

“Hello again sir, and friend of sir! Welcome to _Kukiri Cal Turono_ Suites. I am your faithful—and discreet!—concierge...”

“Ah, we’re alright, thanks,” Poe interrupted with a wince before she could get too far into it. The freaky-accommodating hospitality droid was the only part of this whole arrangement that he found unsettling instead of luxe and hilarious. If he’d remembered she was up there he might have been able to brace himself, but he’d coasted in on too much of a high. He wanted to get out of there before it hit his mood too badly.

Finn raised his eyebrows almost up to the hairline, glancing between the droid and Poe and looking increasingly like he wanted to start a conversation to mess with him. Cute instinct; not gonna happen. Poe tapped the keycard on a panel on the wall and, fixing a sorry-not-sorry grimace on his face, used his entire body to back Finn up into the elevator it opened.

From behind them, a beckoning: “Please _do_ let me know if you nee—”

Poe physically deflated with relief when the chirping voice stopped.

Finn was giving him an appraising squint: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not like somebody.”

“It’s not that I don’t _like_ her, I just…” The facade crumbled all too easily as he trailed off. “Okay, fine. But it’s just how she’s programmed. The tour took like forty minutes.”

“Why would our room need a tour?” Finn asked, just as the elevator stopped and the doors opened into what looked like a second lobby, but wasn’t. It was a living room. A massive, private living room with sofas, paintings, even a decorative fruit basket—all in hues of rich golden browns.

Poe watched Finn’s face and knew he’d looked just as gobsmacked the first time he’d been in here. His brow actually furrowed as he took it all in. He was probably wondering how Poe had paid for it; Poe wouldn’t call it was a _smart_ purchase, but it didn’t put him in debt, and frankly Poe was tired of waiting for rainy days.

Finn turned around to point in his direction: “You’re ridiculous.”

Poe spread his arms: “I’m a romantic!”

Finn thumped his bag straight onto one of the sofas (there were three!) and gave Poe this pleased, almost childish look, like he knew mistreating the furniture was rude and knew nobody would stop him.

“I told you it was nice,” Poe said.

“Not this nice,” Finn replied.

“Well, what’s the point of doing things halfway?”

Finn had to chuckle at that. He reached up to give Poe’s cheek, then gave the room another, still baffled once-over. “I’m gonna go clean up a bit. You stay put.”

“Like they’re ever getting rid of me,” Poe joked.

He watched Finn head toward the wrong side of the suite but couldn’t get the words out before Finn realized and spun on his heels.

“That’s the dining room,” Finn said peevishly. “Why is there a dining room, Poe? Why are there so many _rooms_?”

“Could not tell you,” Poe grinned, “I didn’t build it.”

Finn pointed to another door. “Is this the bathroom?”

“Mm,” Poe nodded.

“Unbelievable,” Finn muttered as he headed in. His fussiness left a smile on Poe’s face. He couldn’t help it.

Without a focus left in the room, Poe drifted toward the large outward-facing window. He pulled his boots off on the way and stopped to pour himself a glass of water from a carafe, but even as he did those things, he never took his eyes off the stars. The view was striking, and it took up almost the entire wall. He couldn’t get used to floor-to-ceiling windows like this in residential areas. No added visibility or tactical advantages. All that trouble just to look good.

He took a sip of the water, then squinted and took another. It was really good, and that surprised him. Poe had never really made room in his world for plain water to be that good.

Poe wondered if it was normal to see waiting ships from up here or if it was just part of that horrible docking delay. Now that he’d fished Finn out of that mess he felt kind of smug to watch it unfolding. He recognized a few different corporate cruisers and not one, but two Hutt caravels. Profiteers, really. While Poe was sure that most of the stranded were good people, there were just enough rich jackasses out in the mix for him to get some satisfaction.

Glancing up after a few minutes of nosiness, he saw Finn’s reflection ghosting across the field of ships. What he didn’t catch—until it was right up next to him—was Finn holding up a little white flower stem.

“Is this for me?” Poe asked.

“Yes,” Finn said, pretending seriousness. “I stole it from the bathroom, ‘cause that’s a totally normal place to keep stocked with fresh flowers.”

“Ah,” Poe smirked. “Exquisite.”

Finn’s smile grew thoughtful, and he turned around to lean—not against the window—but against the metal bar between the panes. It was such a relief having Finn even in his peripheral vision again. Looking at him head-on was even better.

Saying Finn looked good had been understating things. He’d shed his jacket somewhere so Poe could see the way that smart black shirt clung to his body. It was a damn fine body to cling to. Finn looked like everything Poe remembered, just a little more of it.

The beard subtly changed the shape of Finn’s face, but it was still familiar. Reading into the expression felt like coming back to a language he’d always known. Finn looked content, a little amused. Tired. Horny, for sure. There was just something else in there, too, and Poe struggled a little to read it.

Finn reached up and wordlessly asked for the water glass, so Poe handed it him.

Finn made the same face that he had, probably. It was the unsettling notion that some people drank water that good their whole lives and probably had no idea how good they had it.

Finn offered the glass again. Poe took another thoughtful sip. He glanced around the room, then back at Finn. “Was this too much?”

“No,” Finn assured him with a hanging _but_. “It’s nice… it’s gorgeous. It's generous.”

Poe straightened his posture and opened his mouth to interrupt—he was just as much a beneficiary, here—but Finn held up a hand to stop him.

“You didn’t have to do it, though,” Finn said.

Poe settled back on his heels. Of course he didn't have to. He knew that, just as surely as he knew ‘I don't have anything else to spend money on’ and ‘we could die at any moment’ would tilt the mood in a direction neither of them wanted.

Maybe candor wouldn’t work, but there were other options. Poe smiled and took a step back from the window, then started walking across the room—toward the only one that Finn hadn’t been in yet. He still had a card up his sleeve, and it was kind of a doozy.

“See you say that,” Poe drawled, “but have you seen the bed?”

Finn knew what he was doing, but humored him anyway. He followed Poe, and a few seconds later was forced to admit, “That is the biggest bed I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Poe spun around to address him. “And so soft, Finn, _so soft_. Like, I’ve gotta warn you, I laid down on this bad boy for a minute when I got here and almost just abandoned you—the love of my life!—in the spaceport, that’s how comfortable it is. Sure, you look insulted now, but… you’ll see.”

“Oh?” Finn asked with a smirk on his face, wrapping his hands around Poe’s waist, “D’you want to give me the forty-minute tour?”

Poe only got half his indignant noise out before Finn kissed him. When he spoke up against Finn’s lips a moment later it was only to add, “That’s funny, that _is_ funny.” Which Finn knew perfectly well if the continued curve of his lips was any indication. The easy confidence of Finn’s movements coursed through Poe like an adrenaline spike. When he’d broken down Finn’s expression before, he might have underestimated the horniness level.

Poe tossed the flower unceremoniously over Finn’s shoulder so he could wrap an arm around his neck instead; his other hand was still precariously holding that glass of water. Sensing danger, he pulled back for a second to set it down on a credenza. Finn tugged him into his arms again before the water level even settled. That made Poe crow with laughter, which in turn made Finn even bolder, pushier.

Finn maneuvered him toward until he felt the over-fluffy blanket brushing against the back of his legs. Poe clambered up without looking—pretty gracefully, he thought, without breaking the depth of the kiss. The bed was high enough to make him taller than Finn while kneeling. He felt regal up there, imperious. Poe wasn’t one to leave escalation un-escalated. He tilted Finn’s head back, leaned down and managed to do some bossing around of his own.

See, if the laughter was what got at to Finn, the pushiness was what got to Poe, and it turned into this feedback loop that hiked up all the intensity. The press of Finn’s hands. The warmth of his mouth. All of it. It was the first time that the beard had bothered him but he honestly kind of liked being bothered. That was part of it, too.

Poe could feel Finn’s fingertips troubleshooting the deep v of his shirt, trying to see if he could get it off from the front. The shirt was new, and Poe hadn’t worn it before today, so honestly he had to focus on remembering himself. It wrapped around and crossed in the front. Kind of tricky, he had to admit. This might have been sensible to let Finn go—let him figure it out with his eyes instead of his hands—but Poe was having too good a time with Finn’s mouth to release it. Getting his collarbone groped felt less like a problem than an opportunity.

Finn figured the fastening out pretty quick, which was disappointing until it wasn’t. The shirt was made of soft, nice fabric that was ticklish as Finn pulled it impatiently untucked.

The recycled air was cool on Poe’s back. His chest _wasn’t_ cool, it was flush against Finn’s, and Finn’s shirt was warm and a little damp from makeout sweat. Poe reached down to clumsily pull off his socks and toss them on the floor behind Finn. He heard Finn toss the shirt down there, too. Poe didn’t mind. The floor of this place was probably cleaner than he was.

He untangled himself from the kiss and pulled back so they could get properly atop the bed. Poe’s beckoning finger was an invitation which Finn quickly, hungrily followed, and Finn had made it on top of him even before Poe’s back hit the distractingly comfortable mattress.

Poe assumed that Finn was going to kiss him, but instead Finn just stopped puzzled look on his face. He lifted up a hand that had sunk into the pillow-top, examining it. “You were not kidding.” He seemed almost disturbed by how soft it was.

Poe raised his eyebrows. “D’you think I’m gonna kid about beds? With _you_? This whole combination I take very seriously.”

“Very serious,” Finn teased.

“Very serious,” Poe repeated, knowing it sounded dopey. He searched Finn’s eyes for reciprocity, thought he found it and asked, “So you wanna do this?”

A strange little smile twitched across Finn’s mouth, and Poe jolted up to kiss him. When he sunk down again, Finn followed, interlocking their still-clothed legs in this way that just _flirted_ with real, good friction. The extra weight and bulk of him left Poe fluttery-chested, but he was shirtless and Finn still wasn’t. Finn’s shirt was great, but it had to go.

“Okay, off with this,” Poe said, tugging the hem up far enough to see his stomach. Finn smirked a bit and pulled it off.

Poe didn’t wait for an excuse to get a hand up on Finn’s abs this time. He sunk back into the thick, soft quilt so he could get enough space to really see him. The whole Finn was almost too much as once so he tried to focus on parts. The arms, the shoulders. The chest. There was the pale shadow of that massive, familiar scar—the one Poe always had to talk himself out of touching—but there were no new ones he could see.

He hadn’t realized that’s what he was doing or why this moment felt fragile and reverent instead of lecherous. He was taking Finn in all over again, sure, but also checking him for wear and tear.

Finn’s expression had softened, too. He looked down and then up again. “The one on my hand is it,” he said. “Well, that, and a little one on my chin from when a scaffold fell on me. But you can’t see it with the beard.”

“A scaffold fell on you?” Poe asked indignantly. He traced his hands up the smooth skin of Finn’s stomach and huffed, “Setting up an academy is more dangerous than I thought.”

“What—and flying starfighters isn’t? I worried about you, too, you know.” Finn reached down to catch one of Poe’s hands with his own. “We were trying to hide from trouble. You fly right into it.”

Poe couldn’t exactly argue with that. His heart said that was different; his head knew it wasn’t, not really.

“Well, let’s forget about that now,” Poe insisted. “We’ve done enough worrying. We’re here… we’re safe…”

Finn looked around the room.

Poe kept on that same, soft, serious tone: “We’ve got your beard… and your really nice arms…”

Finn laughed.

“And I managed to not get _any_ gray…”

Finn held up a finger to stop him. “You’ll be hot when that happens. That will make you hotter.”

“You think so?”

“I absolutely do think so.”

Poe jutted out his lower lip, thoughtfully, and perked up to check his reflection in this room’s window. He pushed Poe onto his back and Poe was delighted, so he went. Finn maneuvered him down and started kissing his neck again. Poe had almost gotten used to the feeling of Finn’s beard against his face, but it still felt new and exhilarating against his neck.

But Finn wasn’t getting out of it that easily: “You sound like you’ve put some thought into that.”

“I thought about everything,” Finn murmured against his chest. “Dreamed about it... woke up like that.”

Now _there_ was a thought. Poe expected some redirection there. He didn’t expect Finn to own right up to it. He looked up at the ceiling as his brain struggled to catch up; things were happening faster than he’d thought they would. He desperately hoped Finn was going to go down on him.

“And what did you do about it?” Poe asked.

“I grew a beard,” Finn smirked, “Worked on my arms.”

Finn was _totally_ going down on him.

Finn unbuckled Poe’s trousers quickly, capably, and started tugging them down. Poe’s legs had never felt longer, and his knees more knobby and awkward than his attempt to “help” Finn get them off.

Finn kissed his abs lingeringly, then his stomach. They both knew where this was going, and Finn’s voice was tinged with smugness, even arrogance: “If you were bluffing about the beard, now’s the time to tell me.”

“Why,” Poe drawled, “is something about to happen?”

Instead of replying, Finn smirked, dropped down, and nestled his entire mouth in the fabric of Poe’s briefs—front and center. A little to one side, it turned out, trailing upward.

Poe made a sound he didn’t intend. It was a loud one he could hear for seconds later as the elbows he’d been propped up on failed him and he fell back against the pillow, groaning again.

Finn gave a warm laugh that Poe felt, intimately. There was a clingy drag of the lips, another kiss through the cotton. It felt _amazing_. Poe arched his hips up toward the damp heat and he won it for a second before Finn pulled away. Not far, just far enough that when he hooked his fingers in the elastic, he could shimmy them down.

Finn glanced up to check on him, and when Poe answered him with a panting nod, Finn dropped down to take him into his mouth.

Poe moaned against the back of his hand. His instinct was still to blot out the noises even when they weren’t in a barracks. When that didn’t work—it failed spectacularly—Poe sunk down, pulled the pillow across his face and held it there ungently while Finn continued to suck him off. The pillowcase felt dark and cool and he just needed that for a minute.

Poe was the worst with dry spells. It always happened. He _always_ forgot. He got all worked up and thrashed around and then he melted like butter, and too fast for it to feel good if he wasn’t careful. A year just was about the longest he’d gone since he'd started fucking around for real. He’d never been waiting for one person before, much less a person who made him feel like Finn did. He’d meant it when he called him the love of his life. He also meant every groan and jolt that Finn teased out of him now.

Poe might have had a pillow over his head, but he still reached down with his other arm and ran fingers through Finn’s short hair. It was appreciation but also instinct. It did something electric to his nerves, like closing the loop on cause and effect. There had been a period early in their relationship when Finn still had to figure all this out—sex with men, blowjobs in particular—and somehow in the last year all Poe’s memories had drifted in that direction. Loveable inexperience. This was... not that. This was expert work, heat and wet and damned fine suction, cunningly applied. It turned Poe to jelly. It totally unmoored him. He had to keep reminding himself that they had other plans, or at least he assumed they did.

Finn made a rudely conversational noise and took him in deeper, just for a moment. Then he pulled off, pressed a kiss to Poe’s inner thigh and said, “Your bag.”

Poe let the pillow flop away from his face. It didn’t feel so cool on his skin anymore.

He took a second to process: “Yeah,” Poe said vaguely, “Yeah.” His bag was on the bed with them, he’d dropped it there earlier and they hadn’t bothered to notice. Which was convenient, because that’s where the lube was.

But from the skittery, rustling noises—the dull _whuff_ of objects being dropped on the sheets—Finn was having trouble finding it. Poe lowered his head against the mattress and watched the ceiling stay the same. Any spark of hesitation was absolutely gone, now, and he got more desperate with every second’s delay. He told himself to just let Finn get it.

Poe’s resolve lasted maybe three seconds before he lifted his hands, demanding, “Gimme.”

“No, I got it,” Finn said, showing off the jar.

The stuff Poe liked was a pale green gel that was clear once you took it out. He’d swapped out the old, half-empty jar for a new supply, and those jars tended to get all over the place when they were full, but he honestly didn’t care what happened to these sheets. He hoped they were ruined. He hoped they made him pay for them. He wanted this feeling to have an impact—to leave a mark—to break something.

Poe had lost the pillow somewhere, so he propped his arm up behind his head and watched Finn unscrew the lid. He watched Finn’s fingers specifically and really reacquainted himself with the idea of having them inside him. It touched off an insatiable, tickly heat in the pit of Poe’s stomach. He’d missed getting all wound up like this. Finn was visibly hard by now and Poe’s mind definitely wandered.

“Maybe we get your pants off, next,” Poe said, voice rumbling low. “Maybe then you’re the one on your back.”

Finn’s laugh sounded nervous, if appreciative. “You are…”

Finn looked like he was thinking, but he was also softening gel on his fingers and not fooling anybody about what came next. Eventually he admitted, “I can’t think of a word for how you’re being.”

“Finn, I think I’m insulted.”

Finn smiled almost privately, “It wouldn’t be an insult, believe me.”

The honesty in Finn’s voice disarmed him. There was no pretense, none of those nervous, joking games they’d been playing. They didn’t need a word for the feeling to be real. His gaze flicked up at Poe, and his expression softened when he saw Poe was looking back. He thought he saw Finn decide something, but couldn’t tell what it was.

He flirted a slick finger around Poe’s rim. Poe rode out that first shock of nerves, settled himself again with some effort, and flexed his palm against Finn’s scalp to let him know it was fine. Finn kissed Poe’s knee, which was sweet. Then he decisively slid the finger inside him.

Poe fell back with a stuttering sigh. It took a minute for that sensation to get familiar again—he felt every hour of that year he'd gone without this kind of attention. Finn gave him some time before starting to work him with a little more seriously.

Finn was gentle with him, but Poe appreciated that he wasn’t trying to play cute. Finn knew cute wasn’t what Poe wanted. He knew this was the one time in a night’s events where Poe really didn’t like getting teased; he knew all those things because Poe had told him so, explicitly, but that had been a year ago. Finn had clearly remembered. He was taking it as deadly seriously as he had the first night Poe talked him through it.

He pressed a kiss of apology to Poe’s inner thigh when he pulled out to re-up the lube, and then he kept on with those soft but insistent kisses as he went in with a second finger. Making out with his thigh while he stretched Poe out was honestly way off-book, but pretty fucking effective, in its way.

It had been only abstractly good-feeling to start with; now the pleasure had built in him so slowly that he barely noticed it. Then he did, and the two fingers stopped feeling like quite enough. Now that he'd mentioned getting Finn on his back the idea wouldn't leave his head. This felt good. He'd feel better. Poe had missed that feeling so very badly.

“Hey, come up here,” he urged, so Finn gently pulled out and then did. He climbed up to the side of him, and Poe gave him the absolute filthiest kiss he could conceive of, which was frankly pretty filthy. He could have gone for that for a while but Finn’s fly was pressing against his hip in uncomfortable ways. Didn’t make sense to go much further while Finn was still half-dressed.

He started yanking at Finn’s belt with more force than dexterity. He managed to get it open anyway, pulling it loose with a loud, satisfying noise and throwing it on the floor with the rest. Then Poe eased Finn back against those fluffy sheets.

He unfastened his trousers, and as good as the color had looked on the jacket, nothing compared to the way that blue contrasted against Finn’s hips. Then came the dark, soft briefs that had started to get all clingy. He pulled them down far enough that Finn could start shimmying them off, and Poe could watch him do it.

Finn really did have an attractive dick. That was Poe’s opinion, anyway; that wasn't required to do the job, but was certainly a bonus. It was as handsome as the rest of Finn, all for him, and so ready for him with so little effort. Poe thought about sucking him off for a bit—the idea did make his mouth water a little—but frankly they’d have the rest of their lives for that. A bed like this didn’t come along so often.

“See something you like?” Finn asked.

“Not for long,” Poe smirked, and took the thickness of Finn’s erection in his hand. He was a little extra bratty with his application of lube. He even threw in some extra gentle friction, not quite a handjob but enough to get Finn squirming and biting his lip as he waited for Poe to close the gap.

“ _Poe_ ,” Finn breathed. It was worth a year of waiting to hear Finn say his name like that. It was more than worth the cost of the room, and Poe couldn’t resist it. He’d waited long enough.

Poe found that he’d been holding his breath as he lined Finn up underneath him. There was a momentary pang, a stretch at the core of him. It took a minute to get familiar.

When Poe’s eyes came open—he didn’t remember closing them—he found Finn looking up at him with this look so absolutely dazed and adoring that Poe exhaled despite himself. The breath that left him was a groan and the groan felt hot and feral on the inside of his mouth. Every time he moved that _feeling_ inside him was a stirring reminder that Poe had all the control here. Time to make it count.

Poe’s hand was still on Finn’s chest so he braced it there as a counterbalance and very gently rolled his hips. Too gently, to be honest.

Finn gave Poe’s bicep a gentle squeeze; Poe knew it was encouragement and not demand but Poe could only grit out, “Working on it.”

“Sorry,” Finn said.

He sounded so chagrined, so genuine and remorseful… Poe laughed. He didn’t mean to, but he definitely did, and it definitely felt good. Felt great.

He relaxed.

He’d known in his head that he needed to relax, but the relief of it was nearly dizzying. It had taken a bit, but he knew he would get there—right fucking _there_ —pleasure and friction unfurling at a pace he’d be able to control.

Poe could tell that it took effort for Finn to not thrust up into him. They both knew that would only mess with the fragile rhythm they’d found. That conscious struggle to let Poe take the controls didn’t mean he wasn’t participating; the stored-up energy meant something else entirely. Finn’s palms cupped Poe’s knees, then dragged up to Poe’s hips, where they rested heavily and steadily and with just enough authority that it made Poe’s toes curl, and his calves tense, and his thighs flex—

Poe’s threw his head back to shake some hair out of his eyes, and that didn’t work, but he did catch sight of another floor-length window in this room. It showed that same sliver of dark, crowded sky. There they were: half a dozen visible ships. There he was, a sweaty reflection with Finn barely visible over the sheets save a dark hand around Poe’s hip and the barest filthy hint of the dick that Poe was riding.

The window was much too far for the ships to see into but it still tickled at an inner exhibitionist thrill. If they could have seen—which they couldn’t have—it just seemed like a waste to only get half the picture. The less good half, too. Whatever Poe looked like, Finn looked better.

He swallowed and looked down. Finn’s gorgeous skin gleamed dully in the bright lights of the room; his throat was bared and blushing furiously.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Schematics,” Poe joked.

Finn reached over smacked his ass.

Poe gave a cackle of delight and a teasing, retaliatory squeeze. He watched Finn’s face with satisfaction, then with this jolt of overwhelming fondness. Poe couldn’t help it—he dipped down to kiss him. Most of the way, at least; Finn had to arch up and meet him halfway.

Poe had thought of this kiss as a fast and flighty thing, but Finn pressed up into it hungrily. The deepened kiss caught Poe off guard but Finn was right, this was better. Finn held Poe’s face still while the rest of Poe moved. He rested their mouths together even when they stopped making out and he planted little kisses after each of Poe’s sighs of effort.

He felt tired and a little fretful somehow, almost a little lonely, as absurd as it sounded.

That moment—that exact instant that Poe started to flag was the first time in this whole time that Finn pressed up to him in earnest. It was the kind of good, deep, _honest_ thrust that made it impossible to feel alone.

Poe curled over him and against him, bracing a hand on the bed as Finn kept going. He felt Finn start to revel in the physicality of it all, to start taxing those muscles he’d been working on.

“C’mon, let me do it better,” Finn said breathily in Poe’s ear.

Poe swallowed. “D’you want...?”

“I dunno, just…” Finn trailed off, his breathing ragged, “Just let me up, let me _help_.”

Poe’s senses were still firing hot, but he nodded, “Just a minute.”

It was only once he’d pulled off that Poe realized that he was pretty much soaked with sweat. It was not a gentle coating. It was like he’d crashed in the sea. Poe tucked his knees to one side so he could shimmy back to the head of the bed—they’d slid toward the bottom like gravity, and what’s the point of paying for this bed if Finn’s legs had to hang off of it?

He looked up at Finn for some kind of guidance because the emptiness left him a little shell-shocked. It wasn’t unheard-of that Finn would reach down and cup his ass, but this was in kind of a weird way, and he didn’t know what to make of the expression.

“That… that looks harder than I meant to,” Finn said. “Sorry.”

It took Poe a moment and a matching glance down realize what he meant. There were spray of red finger-marks raising up on Poe’s skin. Poe found the image extremely hot but Finn looked a little perturbed.

“Pff, it’s fine,” Poe said. When Finn seemed unconvinced, Poe gently kneed him. “Hey, blanket statement: I’m not thinking about schematics when you’re _inside me_ , and if I say I am, it’s ‘cause I want my ass slapped. That hard or harder. Yeah?”

Finn considered. “I guess that’s what I’d thought.”

“Well, you thought right,” Poe said, cracking a grin.

Finn kissed it right out of his mouth.

Full-body contact still felt new, which was weird because they’d just been actually fucking, but _this_ was all chests and legs and all of it, tangled. It was intimate in a different kind of way. Poe kept one leg—the slapped one—pressed up around Finn’s side, and he noticed Finn’s hand very distantly stroking his haunch. And they kissed, and it was sweet and tender, but it felt… not quite there. Not quite exactly what needed to happen.

Poe tilted his head gave Finn’s chest a friendly pat. “Other way?” He asked.

“Other way,” Finn extra-quickly agreed.

Poe chuckled at that level of enthusiasm, slid up to give him another kiss and flipped over, clambering to his knees. His thighs ached—he wasn’t as young as he used to be—but frankly Poe was fine with some ache, he’d be absolutely fine. Finn brushed aside a bit of Poe’s hair so he could press a kiss to the top of spine. Poe was overcome by the powerful sense of having made the right decision.

When Finn settled back, his hands left sweat-slippery trails down to Poe’s hips. Poe yielded willingly to all Finn’s little rearrangements and he didn’t grind back while Finn lined himself up.

Poe thought about saying something supportive and was still mid-thought when Finn pressed inside him. He hadn’t known how badly he’d wanted Finn to make the noise that he did. His pang of regret to not see Finn’s face was overcome by a selfish satisfaction at having him like this.

Finn moved inside him more easily now. The angle was different, and the friction caught him deeper, even though he’d been bottomed out both times. Poe liked being in guys’ laps but the way he was wired there was just no comparison, intensity-wise. One was wading across a river and the other was getting swept up in the current. Poe relaxed and just let it take him. He let it build inside him.

Absolutely the right decision.

He’d missed Finn’s voice, his jokes, and his handsome smile—he’d for sure missed all that sweetheart sunshine stuff—but he’d also missed getting fucked until he was panting and Finn was really good with him, really good, the kind of good he didn’t even have to be. The kind Poe wouldn’t have held out for if he’d been looking to settle down. He hadn’t been, of course he hadn’t been, but there they were. Finn had found him. Finn got him.

“I,” Poe began, then lost the words along the way, gave a cliche little “ _Oh_ ” as Finn’s movements grew more and more assertive.

“Good?” Finn asked.

“Yeah,” Poe said, and then, raggedly, “You can—”

Poe trailed off, because Finn liked gentle kinds of words when they were like this, and there weren’t gentle words for what Poe meant. But his point was clearly taken.

Finn must have been holding back on purpose because the change came over him like a switch getting thrown. One slick, concussive thrust that made Poe’s breath catch, and a change in tempo that left him panting, relying on his forearms because his palms had gone too shaky. He threw his head back hoping maybe Finn would play with his hair. Instead Finn dipped in to kiss the side of his neck and all that pleasure inside him threatened to spill right over. He _moaned_. He hadn’t realized how close he was.

Then Finn sunk down to plant one hand in the bed right by Poe’s arm, and to wrap the other one snugly under Poe’s chest, holding him tight as he fucked into him with purpose. When he shuddered into Finn’s encircling arm, Finn held him tighter and kissed the back of his head. It was one in a thousand quiet sounds: the shuffle of sheets beneath their knees; the slick, biological noises of fucking; the huff of Finn’s breath at the end of each thrust. Poe barely heard his own gasps at this point. He felt them though. Oxygen, crackling. Important.

Finn’s pace grew desperate and a little jerky. Poe desperately needed this, and he knew Finn was right there with him. He tried to lace their fingers, and he didn’t manage, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t know how long Finn’s hand had been around his dick. Fuck, _his_ hand was on Finn’s hand and he’d barely even known that.

Poe turned his head to kiss Finn’s shoulder, and when he turned back his gaze caught the window again. All those ships all spread out across the dark. He saw them all with a fuzzy kind of clarity, distinct but intermingled with the pleasure that left him so relaxed. He couldn’t look clearly but he couldn’t look away. And it felt for a moment like he didn’t see the nothingness, out there, he saw the web. He felt like he could touch them, like he could count their names. Except that was wrong. So impossible he almost went to shake it out of his head. It was all too far away, and Finn was here, and Finn’s was the only name he could think of. He thought it over and over again, and when Finn held him tighter it felt like half the answer.

“Poe,” Finn groaned against his ear.

“ _Inside me_ ,” Poe urged. Finn’s desperate exhale—right there where he could hear it—filled Poe with a wild satisfaction.

He found that Finn had stopped thrusting into him except as counterpoint to the twists of his hand and he thought that _oh_ , he was meant to come now, and _oh_ , he nearly was. The heat of it rippled through his thighs. It was all right there.

Then it was over.

He spilled messily across the sheets as all that slippery, kaleidoscopic pleasure shocked through him. Finn followed a moment afterward—before Poe’s mind had a chance to catch up with his senses—and with this massive muscular shudder Poe wanted to wrap even more tightly around him.

Poe was so overwhelmed by the force of it that he huddled there, panting, while his nerves just kept on firing. “Holy _shit_ , Finn,” Poe swore, when he finally got his act together. He shuddered face-down into the blanket where there would’ve been a pillow if he hadn’t flung it somewhere. “Fuck,” he added, and airily, “That was incredible.”

Finn was apparently past responding with words, but he gave Poe’s tummy this little, _good-job_ pat that nearly made Poe burst out laughing. Finn’s chest was an unexpected, but not unwelcome weight against Poe’s back. He melted right against him for a minute and Poe honestly couldn’t blame him.

Poe gave a vigorous, “ _Huh_ ,” the kind that usually meant a discovery, but in this case just meant—relief, adrenaline, the need for an exhale not wrapped around a swear.

Finn took a moment to extricate himself, then gave a humongous, sated sigh and flopped belly-first into the sheets beside him. Poe couldn’t help but smile as the bed shuddered and grew still. It was just this perfect sound of effort and exhaustion—like some lumbering bantha that had dragged itself up a mountain to die. It was the funniest sound Poe had heard in his entire life, and his favorite one since the orgasm groaned directly in his ear.

All the muscles Poe’d ignored started buzzing all at once, but he didn’t really ache yet. His system was still too flooded with sex. He just knew that he’d ache _eventually_ , and right now that felt more like a joke than a problem.

Finn peeked over from the edge of his pillow, since he’d behaved himself well enough to still have one. In that moment Poe decided that it didn’t matter if he’d pay for all this later. He wouldn’t have changed anything. Not even Finn’s look of blasé horror at what they’d done to the bed.

“I think we ruined the blanket,” Finn said.

Poe cackled slightly and made a face. “There are like six of ‘em. We can whip this one off and there’ll still be four too many.” He reached across the gap between them up to run his knuckles across the soft line of Finn’s shoulder. “That was…” he trailed off, couldn’t place it, “really. I was seeing stars there, I’m not kidding. You are something else, you know that?”

Finn opened his mouth to say something, but—maybe sensing Poe’s chattiness wasn’t something he could match—extended an arm and said, “Come over here.”

It wasn’t like Poe could ever say no to that handsome, lopsided smile. Finn rolled onto his side and Poe nestled in the crook of his arm. Those _arms_. He just wasn’t going to get over that.

He reached up to scritch his nails in Finn’s beard. Finn’s smile softened. He looked so happy. So gentle. Even after all that sweaty celebration… this was something different. A pang in his chest, a memory of having so carefully not allowed himself to remember the moments like these, because they ached too much for him to function the way he needed to. Poe wasn’t prepared for those feelings to come rushing back.

“I missed you,” Poe confessed. His voice nearly cracked with the desperation of it. “I missed you so much, Finn. Every day. I didn’t want to say it in a message, I didn’t want to... discourage you… and what you were doing was important...”

“I’m never leaving like that again,” Finn said, gently but firmly cutting him off. His voice was so smooth, and his eyes so completely serious that Poe’s face softened in surprise.

Poe’s first instinct was to give him an out: “It’s not like I want you to, but it’s not always up to us.”

Finn shook his head. “I don’t know what the future holds. But I do know that I’m going to be there. It’s gonna be me making the decision. I’m glad I did this, but next time, I make the decision to stay.”

He was so sure of it, too. Resolute in a way Poe really only saw when Finn talked about his defection. That was _exactly_ the tone of his voice, like this was a decision of that same gravity. Poe looked into his eyes, trying to figure out where that had come from. Finn was so warm and honest and open that Poe sometimes forgot there were parts he kept locked away.

Poe laid there for a moment, searching, and then made the decision not to chase it. He touched Finn’s cheek. He trusted him. “Well, no complaints here,” he said with a smile, and nestled into Finn’s arm.

Finn squeezed him, kissed his forehead. “I really do love you, you know that, right?”

“Of course I do, Finn. I love you, too.”

Finn glanced across the wreckage of the sheets. “Should we…”

“In a minute,” Poe said. “Just give me a minute.”

Finn nodded and opened his arms so Poe could nestle like he liked. It took him a moment, but he found his spot, and they settled. The room felt cool around them now—all that sweat evaporating—but it was still way more comfortable than it had any business being. He just wanted to get his head in order. He just wanted to soak up every last minute of being like this, with him.

Poe managed to eke out more than just that one minute. Even so, he bristled a little when Finn stirred and nudged his forehead with his chin. Frankly Poe thought he’d earned a little bit of laziness.

“Poe,” Finn started, anyway.

“Hmm?”

He noticed that Finn was pointing past him. Poe rolled over so he could follow the indication. Finn was pointing at the window—at the ships. They were all moving, and fast.

One substantially faster than the others.

Finn asked: “Is that the Falcon?”

“Yes,” Poe said, because it was. If it took him a moment to answer it’s only because he had such a hard time believing it. He felt nervous hilarity building in his voice as he raised his hand to point: “And that’s somebody chasing the Falcon.”

“Wh—who,” Finn said, “Who’s chasing it?”

For a long moment they were just completely unable to react. Poe felt like he was watching this on a holoscreen. That many ships scrambling out of the way while the Falcon cut improbably between them, pursued by—Poe had honestly no idea.

“Nobody I’ve ever met,” he said, faintly, and had no means at all to elaborate.

He saw a beam weapon fire in a color he didn’t recognize as another ship joined the party. He wasn’t sure if they were firing at the Falcon or someone else. Probably the Falcon. That’s just how these things tended to go.

“We should shower,” Finn suggested.

“Yes,” Poe told him. “Yes, we really should.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and extra thanks to [thejessbeast](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thejessbeast) and [kinneas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kinneas) for helping to get this thing in shape!
> 
> Dang, this universe is fun.


End file.
